It’s Abbott time We do wonder how former prime minister and routinely silenced citizen Tony Abbott decides who he’s going to reward with his insights. Okay, so it’s not shocking that Crikey has had a hard time getting hold of him in the past, but he’s also the first Australian prime minister in the 30-year history of the ABC’s documentaries to not show up and defend his legacy, opting out of Nemesis‘ recap of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison years.
However, it seems he’s made himself available for the podcast Club Grubbery, hosted by two stars of Australia’s anti-vax movement John Larter and Graham Hood, to be “candid and upfront about the past few years”.
Abbott is relatively diplomatic, at least in contrast to the premise of the questioning. Asked about why drugs like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine were “censored and banned and, and, and cast off into oblivion” in a way that “really should get any rational human being wondering what’s really driving this”, Abbot replies, “Well, look, Graeme, I, I certainly, uh, am, uh, generally deeply sceptical about anything that smacks of conspiracy.” Which, at the very least, implies he did absolutely no googling of the people asking him for an interview (or, while we’re on the subject, his chief business adviser).
At Hood’s request, Abbott brings the interview to a close with a quick prayer.
Light on the Hill We would be delighted to know what Bruce MP Julian Hill does for his constituents that inspires such… distinctive gifts. Early last year, he declared a pair of suits he received from a constituent that “it became impossible to return without causing offence”. Yesterday he updated the register to include a statue of himself sitting on a “75cm throne”. The value is, he assesses, priceless:
Bishop takes the night Women’s lifestyle/training website Future Women has received lashings of public money over the years, trailing questions about what material achievements it can objectively claim. So we’re sure Julie Bishop, the Teflon-coated former foreign affairs minister and newly appointed United Nations special envoy to Myanmar, felt right at home.
Telling their podcast about how her role as foreign affairs minister and sole female cabinet member meant the cabinet boasted one more woman than Tony Abbott had wanted to appoint. She didn’t go public with it, but wished, apparently, that the media had expressed more outrage on her behalf.
We can see why she might have expected the media to meet her more than halfway on the disconnect between her views and actions, given the desperation to credit her for views that she hadn’t actually expressed, such on marriage equality or the treatment of women in the Liberal Party.
Julie Bishop certainly has received a remarkable amount of credit over the years for her wisdom and stance on various issues by virtue of her consistent and brave refusal to speak about any of them, or to advance any particular view beyond party talking point boiler plate. Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt, perhaps. And along with Tony Abbott (as mentioned above) she too refused to be interviewed for the ABC’s Nemesis. In any study of political courage she can be used as a great example of how to do what you’re told, keep your head down and not rock the boat. It took her all the way to Deputy Leader of the Liberals, which was fair enough – it’s a pretty but meaningless bauble of a job title with no authority or power. (It’s entirely fitting that the Deputy job has now passed to Susssssan Ley, who meets all the requirements for such a position.) Bishop seems to have only really understood her status among her colleagues when, after decades of faithful and tireless toil for the party, she finally threw caution to the winds and had the temerity to put her hand up for the leader’s job, at which point she discovered she had all of eleven supporters (presumably including herself) in the massed ranks of the federal Liberal MPs. Still, she should not be dismissed as an MP for Curtain, which looks like a jibe about domesticity; she represented Curtin in WA.
A couple of years ago Annabel Crabb did a tv series about women members of Australian Parliaments – Ms Represented. JBish appeared there, too. She claimed for herself the old story of a woman making a suggestion and it being ignored and then a man making the same suggestion and it being widely acclaimed.
After a quick look at her all-male cabinet colleagues during the Abbott reign of terror I wonder if they would have recognised a good idea if anyone had presented it (though they did seem to recognise that Sir Prince Philip was a bad idea). During the Turnbull regime she might have had a better hearing.
But the thing about her bright ideas being ignored was that it was decades old. I took up the role of EEO Officer forty years ago and still have a cartoon a colleague sent me making exactly the same point.
If she wanted to be treated as a bright woman she was both a. in the wrong job; and b. clearly unaware of what was happening in other workplaces.
There is nothing Ms Bishop can say now that will excuse her behaviour in the past. From ‘no quotas’ through to ‘appointed on merit’, Bishop unhesitatingly continued to support her misogynistic colleagues through hell, high water and the bagging of women in general, and other female politicians in particular.
And nothing, absolutely nothing, can redeem her after she appeared with her blond male handbag and one of his equally blonde and toothy offspring, wearing, gods help us, matching cream and white clothing. I don’t remember the occasion but the image of the three of them flaunting their tasteless wealth without a scintilla of irony has seared itself into my brain.
It is perhaps matched in vulgarity only by the virginal white designer dresses of Abbott’s daughters at his enthronement as PM, not to mention the media breathlessly reporting same.
Yah boo sucks to all those people working three jobs to pay their mortgage. It’s your own fault that you can only wear Kmart.
Perhaps ‘member for curtains’ would have been more appropriate for Bishop?
As a creature of habit Julie Bishop was right at home in any system that benefitted Julie Bishop.
I wonder if FW (Future Women) meant she was the first female member for Curtin, or the first female member for Curtains? Especially given Abbott’s propensity for aligning his government’s achievements for women were in making it easier for them doing the ironing.
Nevertheless she was the first Foreign Minister and first Deputy of the Liberal party, apparently. Like they didn’t have Foreign ministers and Deputies before her?
I was also going to get stuck into FW for not knowing the former PM’s name, but a quick search of Trove shows that it was a common type-setting mistake even in his lifetime.